


(Don't) Save Yourself

by Reis_Asher



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Timelines, Be Careful What You Wish For, Dreams, Feelings Realization, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Wishes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:00:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26064619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reis_Asher/pseuds/Reis_Asher
Summary: I wish I'd never met you.The intense thought manifested itself in Will's mind like a living entity. A prayer to God, if He was listening, to release Will from the Devil's chains and allow him to start this macabre story over again.As Will and Hannibal fall off the cliff, Will makes one final, desperate plea for a life in which he'd never met Hannibal. He gets exactly what he wished for - a life of half-truths, a house of cards waiting to be destroyed by the weakest breeze. He waits for a boat he missed, seeks the path not traveled, and addresses the longing in his heart for a man he's never met and yet knows better than anyone.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Kudos: 49





	(Don't) Save Yourself

Will tumbled off the cliff, clinging to the source of his shame and his sin. His blood-stained shirt clung to his skin, still warm with the Dragon's blood. There was an aura of unreality to it, like he'd simply spilled mulled wine onto the white fabric and this sensation of descent was nothing more than his blood pressure dropping in his sleep.

 _Hannibal._ The rock Will now clung to knowing it would sink him to the bottom of the ocean. Hannibal's eyes were closed, his face locked in an expression of serenity, as though he might sprout wings at any moment and ascend. His feathers would surely be blackened, and there could be no place for a creature like him at God's table. Even now, he defied death, mocking it by refusing to show fear. Will loved that face even as he hated it. Wanted to steal every ounce of joy and serenity from Hannibal's soul and have it to himself. Those lips had whispered so many sweet lies into his ears, and Will was tainted by him, his own wings broken off in some terrible ritual. His soul stained with human blood. He yearned to be free of Hannibal, but at the same time he never wanted to let go. With Hannibal's wings, he could float down to the ocean. If he released his grip, he would plummet, dying the instant he hit the water.

There was no way forward and no way back from this moment in time. The teacup was falling, and there was no way to stop it from shattering against Hannibal's kitchen floor. No amount of equations could turn back the hands of time and undo what had already been done.

 _I wish I'd never met you._ The intense thought manifested itself in Will's mind like a living entity. A prayer to God, if He was listening, to release Will from the Devil's chains and allow him to start this macabre story over again. He might have lived a normal life without Hannibal's subtle but devastating influence. He could have lived out his whole existence never knowing what it felt like to kill someone. He was okay with that. As exultant as he had been standing on the cliffside, the shackles of fear, guilt, and horror had bound his spirit.

Yet he leaned in closer, wrapping his body around Hannibal's to shield him from the worst of the impact. The water loomed, growing larger and darker by the second, roiling waves rising up to meet him, and then—

It was as if he plunged into another dimension, one where the air was thick, and cold. Pain shot through his body as bones broke, a rising note of agony that dragged him down into the pitch blackness of unconsciousness. He didn't fight it. The arms of sleep were welcoming him into a place of peace and silence.

Perhaps he could share in Hannibal's bliss after all, here in death.

* * *

Will sat up in bed, his Wolf Trap home gloomy except for the dogs. Winston lay beside him, the only warm body in his bed these days. Divorce papers sat on the bedside table, awaiting his signature. He picked them up, the words blurring together beneath his drunken gaze, as if they were intentionally eluding his understanding. Not that it mattered. He and Alana were bad for each other. She could sense his inner darkness, and he could feel the disappointment growing inside her like a poisonous fruit. His increasing alcohol consumption had helped to mask his awareness of her disdain, but its side effect had been to inhibit his self-control, removing the filter that kept his cruel thoughts under lock and key. The things he had said in low, whispering tones, planting bitter seeds that came to flourish under his care no longer bore thinking about. The flowers had bloomed. Their marriage was dead.

He grabbed a cheap pen and scribbled his signature. It was barely legible, and hovered half an inch above the line. Hopefully it would be enough to set Alana free from the cage he'd imprisoned her in. He folded it back in the envelope and licked it, sealing it before he could have second thoughts. He'd put it out by the mailbox in the morning and the mail carrier would take it.

He placed the envelope down on his bedside table for now and picked up the open bottle of beer he'd started earlier. It was crowded for space alongside many others, the remnants of a six pack he'd polished off tonight. He took a long sip and lay back, closing his eyes. Perhaps it was time to leave Wolf Trap and seek out a different life. A simple existence fixing boat motors, away from people and their overwhelming emotions. He'd been late to his own classes more often than not in the last few months. He could feel the students' laughter when he forgot the important facts of a case he was teaching. He was slipping. The alcohol wasn't working any more. It wasn't masking the pain.

It was only a matter of time before Jack came by and asked him to work on another case. He'd conveniently ignore the stench of alcohol in favor of results, a subtle guilt trip lined up in case Will refused. It wasn't going to work this time. He'd been a fool to believe he could do this on a regular basis, that Alana could serve as his lifeboat in case he swam too deep into murky waters. He'd needed a therapist, not a wife. Someone who was cold and detached, who didn't sink under the weight of Will's heavy, grotesque baggage.

Like the fact he'd walked in on Garrett Jacob Hobbs slitting his daughter's throat and he'd frozen up until Abigail had bled out and Jack had taken Hobbs into custody. He'd been unable to pull the trigger—the very reason he'd quit being a cop. What was it inside him that chose inaction while an innocent young woman bled to death? What could possibly be worse than that?

Was he afraid he'd like it too much? That it might have felt _just_ , claiming Garrett Jacob Hobbs' life in an act of premeditated violence? He'd often imagined himself the hero in the months since, picturing a scene where he killed the father and saved the daughter, his blood-soaked hands clamped down on her wound until help arrived. Alana told him survivor's guilt was a common reaction to a horrific scenario. Will knew the truth—that he'd let Abigail die rather than expose his own hideous true nature, and that made him a killer as surely as if he'd slit her throat himself.

He slipped into a drunken slumber. A masculine voice with a distinctly European accent called his name. The voice sparked a deep yearning inside Will, an almost nostalgic sense of belonging he couldn't put a name to.

 _"Will…"_ His name on those lips took on a different meaning. He was revered by the speaker, the utterance of his name an act of worship.

He looked up to see a wide river. On the far bank stood a great stag, proud and beautiful. He was drawn towards it and waded into the river, but the current was too strong. He lost his footing and was pulled beneath the water. His lungs filled with liquid, and he realized he was drowning, helpless against the forces of nature.

* * *

Will woke in a puddle of sweat, gasping for breath. He glanced around, looking for familiar ground, but this was both home and not home at the same time. He repaired boat motors for a living. He'd sold the house in Wolf Trap and left after his divorce became final. It was just him and the dogs, and occasionally a woman named Molly he'd met at the animal shelter. He supposed they were dating, but he couldn't risk getting married again. Especially since he'd never kicked the bottle, descending into full-blown alcoholism. It was a trap he waded deeper into every year, a dark tide pulling him slowly underwater.

In some other life, he might held onto some sense of purpose, but he couldn't help but feel he'd missed the boat in this life. There was something he should have done in Wolf Trap, but he couldn't think of what it might have been.

He kept dreaming of the river and the stag, drowning each time before he could reach it. Waking in a lake of sweat, his head pounding, his body aching. Longing for a drink. One morning he woke with a name on his lips. _Hannibal._

Who the fuck was Hannibal?

When Alana called to check in on him—a monthly welfare check she no doubt carried out due to a sense of responsibility for Will's condition—Will couldn't help but ask.

"Do you know anyone named Hannibal?"

Alana went dead quiet on the other end of the phone. They sat like that, locked in an increasingly deafening silence. Eventually, Alana submitted, a tiny sigh escaping her lips that was as loud as a lion's roar.

"How do you know about Hannibal?" Alana's tone was both concerned and accusatory. "Are you _stalking_ me, Will?"

"No!"

"Dr. Hannibal Lecter is a psychiatrist and a friend of mine. I almost suggested you see him as a patient after the Hobbs incident, but I decided against it. I thought you might become… jealous of the fact I hold him in high regard."

"You're dating." Will swallowed. He hadn't expected the jealousy that flooded his senses now. He was angry at her, outraged at her for taking something that was his—no, that couldn't be right. He had to be jealous she was moving on, though that wasn't it. He was over her. When he thought about Alana, there was only the sense of an old mistake, of walking down the wrong path and wanting to turn back. They'd doubled down on each other's flaws. He didn't miss her.

"I'm going to just… go," Alana said. "I'm not going to call you. You call me when you figure things out." The line went dead in his hand, but he didn't care. The truth was dawning on him, and he saw it all. The point at which his fate had diverged from its intended path.

He was jealous for the life he might have had if Alana had referred Will to Hannibal instead of trying to treat him herself, as patient and husband. Will desperately longed for that road not traveled. The fork in the trail that had never made itself visible to him because of Alana's bad judgment call.

He yearned for Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a man he'd never met and whom Alana was now dating. Everything about this was wrong. Hannibal was—

—nobody at all.

 _I wish I'd never met you._ His own desperate voice echoed in his ears, mocking him with his own prayer. His wish had been granted, hadn't it? He'd never met Hannibal. He'd led a normal life, burying his base instincts beneath increasingly thin layers of denial as he destroyed everything he tried to build. Without Hannibal, the best he could hope to put together was a flimsy house of cards, pushed over by the weakest breeze.

He closed his eyes. The stag on the other side of the river lay dying, bleeding out from a mortal wound. Hannibal's one hand cradled his face, the other clutching a knife that stabbed up into his gut.

_"I let you see me… know me."_

"Hannibal!" Will cried out as the memories came rushing in, the spell cast by his wish broken into fragments like shattered glass. He knew Hannibal once again, all the cruel, terrible, and beautiful moments flashing before his eyes. He teared up, remembering all that Hannibal had taken from him and wishing he'd take it all away again, rather than having to endure the cruelty of never knowing it at all. Hannibal's love was pain, and he yearned for it with every ounce of his blackened soul. They slew the Dragon once again, two hunters cleaved together as soulmates beneath a killing moon.

That was where Will finally accomplished his becoming. The only place and time in which he belonged. All else was farce, an increasingly terrible drama built on lies and falsehoods, imitating life. A pointless, worthless existence, signifying nothing.

"Hannibal…" Will coughed. He fluttered his eyelids, coughing up water flecked with spots of blood. He felt like he'd been freshly born, a babe deposited from his mother's womb onto wet sand.

"Will!" Hannibal clutched his face. He was smiling, and it was at once beautiful and terrifying. "I thought you had been lost to me."

"I was lost," Will admitted, "but now I'm found." He extricated himself from Hannibal's hands and sat up. His whole body was in excruciating pain, but euphoria was stronger, endorphins flooding his system. He reached up to cup Hannibal's face, fingers and thumbs exploring him, mapping the shape and feel of him as if he was a blind man meeting Hannibal for the first time.

Will pulled him into a kiss, primal and desperate, fueled by a burning need to know Hannibal was really here and this wasn't another trick of the mind. The metallic taste of blood on Hannibal's tongue flooded his senses, and he knew he was home.

He'd made an ill-conceived, desperate wish, seen the life he might have led without Hannibal in it, and chosen this path anyway. The only road in which he was true to himself. All the crimes Hannibal had committed in the service of enlightening Will seemed justified, now. They were Will's crimes, too, brought about by his denial. He was the one who had driven Hannibal to such lengths in the pursuit of truth, and now that the shackles were off, he would kill again. _They_ would kill again. He and Hannibal. A bonded pair.

There could be no more denial, now that he'd seen the road not traveled. Hannibal's tongue probed Will's mouth, and his body responded with quickening desire. Another truth he'd kept buried, now brought out into the light of day.

Will broke the kiss, gasping for breath, knowing that all this was right and as it should be. He gazed into Hannibal's eyes, feeling like he might cry at the serenity he felt. For the first time, the puzzle pieces of his life had fallen into place, and he was finally sharing in the peace and joy Hannibal knew and he could only covet before now.

"You've accepted the inevitability of fate, Will." Hannibal's smug, satisfied smile reeked of gloating, and Will had to suppress the urge to wipe it right off his face. He could press Hannibal down into the sand, wrap hands around his throat and squeeze the life out of him.

But then he'd have to live in yet another empty timeline. One without Hannibal in it, where he had to answer for his crimes alone—staring Jack in the eye and pretending to wear a human suit as he denounced Hannibal.

He wouldn't denounce his _nakama,_ not for any amount of Jack's fake praise or an easier sentence. Not for all the money in the world. Not even for his _life_.

He was in love with Hannibal Lecter, and he knew he would follow him into the very depths of Hell itself. Hannibal was his soulmate. His god.

"We need to go." Hannibal's soft voice cut through Will's epiphany. "Can you walk?"

"I… I think so." Strong arms guided him to his feet, and he leaned his weight against Hannibal as they crossed the beach. He turned to briefly look back at the ocean. All his other selves had drowned there, leaving only this Will. He'd let them perish, and good riddance.

He only wished he'd killed them sooner.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, come hang out with me on Twitter @landale!


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